The Price
by justmica
Summary: Fletcher is just another Smoker, just another zombie in a world gone to hell. Only he's not quite like the rest. His Infection is incomplete. And that lands him in a cage at the mercy of those who are willing to do whatever it takes to save the world.
1. Bitten

**Rating**: Currently rated for mild language and some descriptive scenes because it's better safe than sorry.

**Disclaimer**: I do not claim to own Left 4 Dead or any of its related themes, ideas, concepts, or canon characters.

* * *

**Prologue**

Bitten

"…_as reports pour in from around the country of similar symptoms associated with this new and devastating illness, showcasing a larger and more rapid spread than experts_…"

"Oi, Stephen, shouldn't you be in bed, mate?"

The joking group of college students looked around interestedly, almost immediately narrowing in on the hunched over, stumbling form approaching them, some in surprise and a few in worry. The young man's face was a pale, sickly gray. He looked worse than last they had seen him, when he had left in the middle of his early morning class complaining to his friends of headaches, a sudden onslaught of fatigue, and an abnormally high fever. Despite their suggestions for him to see a doctor, he had simply opted to return to his dormitory and load up on cold and flu medication to try to wait it out. He had been sick like this before. Most likely just another flu, since it was getting on to be the season for it. It was nothing to worry about.

"Felt restless," rasped Stephen weakly, pausing to lean against the wall to catch his breath.

The man who had spoken earlier came up behind him and pounded him on the back in a sign of greeting and worry, nearly sending the poor sick man face first into the concrete.

"Easy Antoine, he's sick, not choking," said a tall, lithely built young man who was leaning against the parked car they had been standing around. Behind him through the open window, the news alert that had been sounding for the past few minutes continued on, annoyingly interrupting the regular music broadcast they had been listening to.

"…_authorities have shut down all access to several major cities in the eastern states, stating the need to quarantine due to the highly infectious nature of…_"

Several of the other men around the car chuckled, the tense, anxious mood broken, and continued their discussion about the possible outcomes of the next night's game.

"You look like hell, dude, you should go back to bed," said Antoine uncertainly, ignoring the rest. "I don't even know how you made it all the way over here, looking like you do."

Stephen waved a hand jerkily, shaking his head as if dislodging water from his shaggy brown hair. "M'fine. Jus' need t'work it off is all."

The tall man broke away from the others and came up to them, sending a stream of gray cigarette smoke from his mouth up into the air before he bent down slightly to take a look at the shorter sick man, resting a hand on his shoulder. Despite his earlier laid back attitude, his eyes shone with concern.

"Toni's right, man, you should get back to the dorm. Get some sleep."

Again, Stephen shook his head, although he did look up to smile wanly at the other. The look was almost enough to make the two friends around him simultaneously back off and attempt to drag him to the hospital. "Could use a smoke."

Antoine frowned, sharing a look with the other healthy man. "I don't think that's smart, dude…Fletcher, don't give him—"

But the tall man, Fletcher, had pulled out another cigarette, taking a long contemplative drag on his own as he handed the new one to the pale, shaking man.

"Hey! He's sick, he shouldn't be smoking…"

"When a man needs a smoke, he needs a smoke," said Fletcher grudgingly, shrugging his shoulders apologetically as he flipped out his lighter to light Stephen's cigarette. After a few moments and puffs, the shorter man took a long drag and sighed, a small, wavering smile still gracing his features as he stared up at them blearily, his eyes glassy. "Nature of the beast, man, trust me on this. You wouldn't understand unless you've felt the same. Now c'mon, you grab one arm and I'll grab the other. We'll drag him back to the dormitory and strap him in bed if we have to."

Still looking sourly put off, Antoine nodded and firmly gripped one of the sick man's arms, swinging it up over his shoulder. Fletcher turned back to the rest of the group, stating their hasty good byes for them before grasping the upper arm of Stephen's other side and the trio started off down the gradually darkening street. The sick man between them merely puffed dazedly on his cigarette, apparently either enjoying it too much or just too sick to want to talk, let alone walk straight.

"…_to please remember to avoid contact with any suspected infected individual, and to immediately report the incident to their local_…"

"Hey," said Antoine certainly after they had been walking for a few minutes. The sounds of their friends were far behind them now, obscured by the sounds of passing cars and other chattering groups of college students enjoying the start of the weekend. It was busy on the sidewalk, especially the closer they got to the dormitories and the university, and they received many strange looks. Once or twice, Fletcher thought he heard the words "drunk" and "typical" from several older adults. "You don't think that it's serious, what they're saying on the news…"

Fletcher blew out some smoke from his nose and took another long, thoughtful drag on his almost spent cigarette before answering. "Certainly sounds so, eh?"

"Well…you don't think…that maybe…" The other man paused and glanced at his friend over Stephen's head, waiting until they made eye contact. He looked pointedly down at the man they supported, and when he spoke his voice was nearly indiscernible over the typical city din around them. "Maybe it's reached here? I know the latest quarantined city is miles away, but they said it spread fast, and this guy wasn't the only one to be missing from classes today…"

This thought had already occurred to Fletcher, but he had not wanted to mention it in the presence of Stephen. The last thing his friend needed after being dumped by his girlfriend a week ago was to be told he might very well be one of the city's first victims of this strangely contagious and dangerous illness plastered all over the news. However, after checking to see that his friend was obviously too stoned to hear a single word of the conversation going on overhead, he moodily shrugged and flicked his dying cigarette ahead of him onto the sidewalk, crushing it beneath his feet as he walked past. "Maybe. Though I don't know, might be nice to get sick and get an excuse from attending classes for a few weeks, eh?"

Antoine merely shook his head, the expression on his face anxious and upset to the point of looking sick. Feeling guilty for trying to make light of the situation when his best friend was obviously in such distress, Fletcher reached his free hand over and punched him in the shoulder.

"Lighten up, Toni. It's just like the Swine Flu they had a little while ago, remember? Now look, it's done and over with now. No big deal."

"Yeah, I guess…"

The man between them suddenly stopped, so abruptly that they had dragged him a few feet before they realized it. It was as if his legs had suddenly lost the ability to support the rest of his body, and with nervous glances at each other, the two healthy men slowly lowered him to the ground on his hands and knees, crouching next to him with reassuring hands on his shuddering back.

"Stephen, you all right man?" asked Antoine apprehensively, leaning down and tilting his head to he could try to look into his friend's face. As if in answer, Stephen's body suddenly heaved and a torrent of red liquid spilled from his mouth onto the concrete.

Antoine looked up at Fletcher, his face as white as a sheet and his eyes wide, a matching expression to the one on Fletcher's face. "Fletch, this is bad man. Bad. We need to get him to—"  
He never finished that sentence. Suddenly, unexpectedly, Stephen lunged up, an abnormal burst of power and strength launching up at his college friend, sending the two of them flying against the concrete wall of a bank they had been passing. With a startled yell, Antoine tried to push him off, only to cry out in horror as his sick friend easily shoved the defending arms aside and dove forward, bloodied mouth open, to sink his teeth into the open flesh of the flailing man's neck.

"Stephen, what the hell are you doing!" shouted Fletcher, scrambling to his feet and throwing himself at the struggling pair. He was shoved back almost immediately, stunned by the strength and viciousness at which his friend had pushed him aside.

Several pedestrians around them had stopped to try to see what was going on. Still trying to recover from his horror and shock, he watched as one man stepped forward and tried to bodily shove Stephen off of Antoine's twitching, weakening form. Blood was filling the street now, pouring from the ripped artery, pumping in a crimson fountain over everything in its path. The stranger managed to make Stephen stumble back a foot, only to be responded to with a snarl as Fletcher's friend dropped into a crouch before pouncing forward, sending himself and his new victim to the ground where his limbs shot out and his teeth gnashed and bit down on a frantic, swinging limb.

The street was filled with screaming people now. Fletcher shook his head, trying to see through the haze of confusion and terror at this unexpected and disturbing scene. A part of him was screaming at him to run away, to try to escape from this maddened situation and save himself. It was a feeling that was only strengthened as he saw another concerned citizen fall to Stephen's insane, animalistic attack. Fletcher felt the bile rise into his throat as his suddenly heightened hearing heard teeth rip through flesh, as his wide eyes took in the sight of his best friend lying slumped up against the side of a building, weakly clutching at the wound on his neck as he sobbed while around him the gradually mounting victims of the horrendous attack were suffering through the same reactions.

There were sirens now, blaring in the distance, growing ever closer. Fletcher pushed himself to his feet, his entire body shuddering uncontrollably, only to be shoved back down again by people who were trying to run away, to escape from the chaos on the street as they screamed and cried and spoke frantically into cellphones. He had to reach his sick friend, had to try to speak sense into him. He was sick, he just needed care and some bed rest, and Antoine needed to go to the hospital. That was all. Everything was fixable. Everything was…

By the time he had managed to regain his footing and press blindly through the crowd towards the last place he had seen Stephen, a black and white police cruiser roared up, skidding to a stop as two policemen jumped out, guns drawn and faces grim as they rushed into the scene.

Fletcher suddenly had a bad feeling about this. A terrible feeling that he could not quite think of the reason for. His brain had not quite caught up with what his body already knew.

"He's just sick!" he heard himself calling towards them, shoving bodily past a woman who was standing there, staring in horror while she jabbered rapidly into a cellphone clutched to her ear. "No, he's sick, that's all, I'm his friend, I—"

Several sharp, deafening bangs ripped through the air. The screaming and commotion reached a new, terrifying peak, and suddenly there seemed to be people everywhere, more than before shoving past him, yelling to each other and to the empty air. Fletcher's senses were barraged with snippets of screamed conversations answering the terrified questions of those who had just barely arrived on the scene.

"…gone crazy! Just started attacking people! Biting…"

"They shot a kid back there! Shot right in the head!"

Shot?

Oh God.

Fletcher tried to push through at a more frantic pace, but it was no use. It was like trying to fight his way up a powerful current. Everyone else was moving in an opposite direction. Frustrated, he turned at a ninety-degree angle and forced his way onto the street, jumping up onto the hood of car parked parallel and scrambling up on top, standing as tall as he could to try to see over the chaos.

The sight would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Stephen lay dead on the side of the street, most of his head blasted away from the policemen's expertly fired bullets. Around him, the two police were hastily tending to the wounded, many cradling bitten arms and necks as they sat in stunned disbelief or paced back and forth in anger and incredulity, waiting and watching as an ambulance and several more police cruisers pulled up onto the scene. Through the crowd, Fletcher could see Antoine being cared for by a concerned passerby who obviously had more self-control than the others still attempting to run away from the scene. The bitten, bleeding man raised a shaking, blood-covered arm as if to point, and then suddenly it fell to his side, as if a puppet with its strings cut. His head lolled almost comically onto his shoulder, the hand clutching his wound losing slack and allowing the blood to spill serenely down his front, no longer pumping with the strength or fury as it had before.

Fletcher reeled back, slipping and losing his balance so that he fell backwards several feet to land jarringly onto the asphalt of the road. Luckily, traffic had stopped all together in the area, so he was not in the risk of getting run over, but his mind had no space in it to register that fact. All it could do was replay the horrible past few minutes over and over in his mind's theater, blurring together the screams and the yells and the scenes and smells into one horrendous, swirling world of madness.

The man picked himself off the ground and stumbled blindly for several feet before breaking into a flat out run, his shoes pounding furiously against the concrete, his smoker's lungs heaving and screaming for breath. But he ignored his pain, his mind overriding all other senses and driving on his body from sheer will until the screeches of sirens and the bustle of emergency workers and screaming pedestrians faded into the background. He ran and ran until the only thing left of the scene was his frantic, shattered mind and the beginning of the end of his world was swallowed up in the pounding of his heart in his ears and the natural, busied commotion of a city on the brink of hell.


	2. Captured

**Full Summary**: The Infection is a virus with many strains, some allowing for staggering and recognizable physical mutations. With so many variables and possibilities, there's bound to be some exceptions to the rule, Infected who are not as mentally or as physically damaged as the rest. Does the hope for the cure lie within them? A branch of the government certainly seems to think so. As the world spirals ever further out of control, they actively capture and contain Special Infected, looking for the ones who aren't like the rest, who might very well hold the only hope the world has for salvation. Special Infected like Fletcher, an incompletely Infected Smoker with a fragile but vaguely human state of mind.

But that doesn't stop them from shoving him in a cage, placing him and several others like him at the mercy of a group of scientists and doctors racing against time to find the answer to the world's newest and most dangerous problem, regardless of the price they might have to pay. After all, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…right?

Nicole used to think so. A brilliant young researcher-in-training and daughter of one of the world's leading researchers of diseases, she knows the price that sometimes must be paid to save the world. But after gradually realizing how human Fletcher and the other test subjects are, maybe that price is something she is no longer quite as willing to pay.

* * *

**Chapter One**

Captured

For the first time in decades, the city was silent. There were no sirens rushing to the scene of one of the many crimes that used to take place daily, no car horns blaring amidst several miles worth of rush hour traffic, no buzzing conversation of thousands upon thousands of people as they walked to jobs, school, home, or on day shopping trips. There was nothing. Nothing but silence.

Or at least, nothing that had once normally been there.

A lone pedestrian shuffled aimlessly down a deserted street, the left side of his body covered in raised bumps and boils, one eye on that side of his face almost forced shut by a sloping, damaged forehead and a large tumor-like growth running down his check to his neck. From his rasping open mouth hung a long stretch of some sort of glistening tentacle-like appendage that swayed back and forth with every step and twitched at every occasional cough. The clothing covering his tall, lithe frame was heavily stained and torn from weeks of being on the street. If he remembered what he had once looked like, he would have been horrified at his disfigured, filthy state, but probably resigned to admit that in comparison to other similar creatures he had seen, he was really not that bad off. The rest of his body was still miraculously intact and growth-free, the small haze of greenish smoke surrounding him was barely discernible compared to others with a similar state, and his skin color had not taken on that terrible gray tinge that seemed so common among the many current city inhabitants (his brain called them Others and he had no reason to think of them otherwise). True, it was no longer a healthy shade in any respect, but at least it wasn't gray.

Maybe that was why no one liked him enough to stick around.

He paused to curiously inspect several huddled forms on the ground, only to lose interest and continue on his way once he realized that they had been dead for far too long and were missing almost half of their bodies. He had no interest in the dead and decaying. Not unless he was so hungry he could not resist a few small bites.

_Cannibal_.

The fleeting thought made him scratch at his swollen arm in vague confusion, stopping and looking around at the empty street, now becoming heavily shadowed in the dim light of the oncoming sunset. His brain had spat out that word several times before, not that he really remembered. He could hardly recall what had happened that morning. Even still, it made him uneasy, but he could not quite figure out why. It had something to do with food. That much was clear. But there was nothing wrong with food if he was hungry, right?

He started on his lonely way once again, the word and the feeling rapidly disappearing into his confused, shattered mind. Darkness was coming. That was much more interesting. Besides, the strange words were hardly anything new. They came to him quite a bit. It was perfectly normal.

A few blocks ahead and he passed an alleyway where there was movement. He paused in his meaningless wandering and watched as a pair of creatures bit and tore eagerly into some sort of corpse, their faces and fronts and clawed hands covered in blood and gore. One raised its head to look at him as he coughed, its face concealed within the darkness of a hood, but it lost interest almost immediately after seeing what he was and returned to its grisly work. After a moment of sniffing the air, testing their scents for signs of any further danger, he moved on. He knew what kind of creatures those were. They were the ones who made the high-pitched shrieks that hurt his sensitive hearing. They moved with an agility and speed that his body could not match and tore with wicked claws at the other creatures who did not have gray skin or bumps and boils, the ones that his brain called Normal.

Speaking of Normal…

He paused in his step once again, face turned upward as he sniffed at the air. There was a new smell here. The smell he associated with the Normal. They were close, within a mile radius. If he stopped his raspy breathing long enough, he could just hear the telltale signs of the shrieking attack cries of the Others that always heralded their presence.

After a moment of consideration, he decided that he would go see what the commotion was about. He had learned early on that such sounds of chaos often brought fresh corpses, and he was hungry enough for a taste of one of those regardless of the strange word and feeling associated with the thought of it. Just as long as there was something appetizing left. Of course, he had also learned the hard way that getting involved in such things was dangerous to his health and well being, but as long as he kept himself hidden, he would most likely be fine.

Most likely.

The hub of the commotion was a little more than half a mile away. More than two dozen Others were swarming over a small stretch of street, clawing out the ground and sometimes at each other, nearly engulfed in a cloud of green smoke, different than the one that seemed to persistently hang around his body. He sniffed the air curiously, his one good eye observing the scene from a street corner a safe distance away. From what he could see, there were no Normal there, but the green mist certainly smelled like they should be.

Confusion crept into his brain as he tried to figure it out. Whenever he smelled or saw something like the green mist in the past, there had always been Normal around. Always. True, it usually had not been in mist form, instead being rather a liquid, but it was still the same smell if not stronger. Yet there were no Normal in sight. Frowning, he turned his nose up and kept sniffing, searching for any scent related clues as to what was going on. His determination to make sense of things overrode his urge to investigate the strange mist, to fall in line with the Others in their maddened, single minded purpose.

After a few moments, he thought he found it, the answer to his questioning thoughts, or at the very least a possibly meal. It was vague, almost unnoticeable. If he had not taken the time to look for it, he would have missed the smell completely.

Fresh blood. Normal blood. And it was close.

His nose twitched as it tested the air a bit more, trying to determine the direction that the fresh smell of blood was coming from. He would much prefer the thing was already dead as opposed to something he would have to make dead himself. For some reason, he could never bring himself to actually kill anything like the Others did. Somehow, it felt…wrong. Even more wrong than how that strange word made him feel when he thought of feeding. Wrong enough that he had never tried it.

An unusual movement caught his attention and he looked up to watch it with a narrowed eye. Through a window several floors above the street a block away from where the Others gathered, something thin and lean stuck itself out. A moment later, a small cylindrical object flew through the air a little to the side of the maddened group of Others and with a smash, the glass broke and another cloud of green erupted into the air. The group of creatures went insane, immediately converging on this new development, shortly joined by many more to replace the numbers they had killed amongst themselves in their frenzy.

Forcing himself to ignore the nearly overwhelming smell and focus on the blood scent instead, he turned his good eye to stare at the building that the movement and the small object had come from. It was a few doors away from him, a good block or so from the chaos. He took a few moments more to decide that that was where the blood smell was originating, completely ignored by the Others as they sought after the more overpowering scent.

Good. That only meant more for him.

He took a step towards the building, only to hesitate as a thought bubbled through his swirling mind. Movement had come from that place. So had the strange object that had caused the smoke. He struggled to try to think why such events would be bad for him. Oh. Yes. That must mean that life of some sort was present in there, and since he could smell Normal blood, it was probably Normal life. But then, there _was_ blood. Lots of it, from what he could smell. So perhaps whatever was bleeding was now dying, even if it had moved earlier. It would hardly hurt to check it out. Surely.

He continued towards the building, picking his way carefully down the sidewalk, his gaze switching between his target and the milling group of Infected, many now fighting amongst each other as an outlet for their rage and hunger. They ignored him, and for that he was glad. He didn't really have the energy to fend any of them off if they came to investigate what he was doing. Not that they usually would.

His pace slowed as he came up to the building. The smell of blood was definitely coming from within it. After sniffing about for a bit, he located it wafting into the street from an open side door down a narrow alleyway. Open doors were good. It meant that no one was around to shut them. Eagerly, he started down the alleyway towards the dark rectangle, his stomach churning anxiously at the thought of food. It had been a while since he had last eaten, scavenging the remains of a fresh corpse a day or so back. He wasn't quite at the point where he was hungry enough to try eating long dead flesh, but he was hungry enough not to pass up on a good meal.

And that blood smelled good. _Really_ good.

When he reached the doorway, he poked his head inside first, letting the vision in his good eye automatically adjust to the dimness. It did so rapidly, better than his eyes would have done so before, not that he remembered that. But it didn't take memories for him to focus on an open door across the small, nearly empty room and to realize that that was where his goal lay. The scent was coming incredibly strong from there. Nearly overpowering to his heightened senses. As a result, he took no notice of the dark forms lurking in the corners to his sides. He paid no heed to the fact that the room scented of Normal presences, although they were somewhat disguised by musty cloths and the next room's smell of blood.

He coughed to himself and paced forward slowly, leisurely, satisfied that he could not smell any Others in this room with him. His good eye was trained on the entrance to the room beyond. He didn't even get the chance to see the barrel of a gun raise from one of the dark forms in the corner, the gloved finger sliding into place over the trigger.

There was a muffled bang and he felt something pierce his neck. He stumbled, a hand automatically shooting up to the spot to feel a long, narrow tube sticking out of his skin. His fingers raked at it, letting it fall to the floor, but the damage was done. He felt his legs give way, his shoulder crash into the wall as he slid onto the floor. With a confused sense of horror, a rapid numbness flowed through his body from where the sharp pain had happened. His cry of surprise died in his throat.

Another muffled bang and suddenly he was twitching in agony, clawing at his shoulder where another strange object had lodged itself. He felt more pain than he could ever remember. It jolted his entire body, fired every cell and neuron, even as they became unfeeling and deadened. Even as he felt his mind slowly spiral downward into blackness.

Then the pain was gone and he lay there unable to move, barely able to breathe. He felt panic rise in his chest, choking him, but there was nothing he could do but lay there in the sudden, terrible silence. His body was beyond his control.

Then a strange sound broke through the muggy silence, whispered and excitedly urgent.

"Got one! Looks like a Smoker!"

_Smoker?_

The word reverberated through his swiftly darkening mind. He knew somehow that the word was referring to him, but he could not quite fathom why. It made little sense in his mind. Only…

_When a man needs a smoke, he needs a smoke. Nature of the beast, man…_

"Perfect. Get some samples and stick him with the others," said a new voice brusquely, calling from what seemed like the next room over, and immediately the Smoker felt himself being grabbed and dragged across the ground rather roughly. He tried to fight back, tried to escape, but his body was shutting down with his mind closely following. "And make sure you label everything right this time! God knows we ain't got the time to play matching games."

The first voice muttered something nearly indiscernible, his tone obviously disgruntled. After a few moments, the movement stopped and the Smoker was harshly dropped on the floor. He lay there for what felt like an eternity but was really only a few seconds, his sluggish mind frantically attempting to make sense of the situation as little by little his thoughts began to shut down. Then there was something grabbing one of his arms again, and he felt a sharp, pricking pain and an odd pulling sensation in the same spot. His blood was being sucked out of his veins, siphoned into a small plastic tube. Not that he really knew that. All he knew was that he was in trouble. Big trouble.

_It was a trap._

It was the last thought he had as he felt his consciousness give way at last to the growing darkness in his mind. And he didn't even really understand what it meant. Except that he probably wasn't going to be happy when he woke up.

If he ever did.


	3. Caged

**Chapter Two**

Caged

When he awoke next, he was in near darkness. For a long time, it seemed that all he could do was lay there on a hard, cold surface, unable to really move or think much. His mind flickered briefly, thinking. Remembering. But the sounds and images it produced to parade across his mind's stage meant little to him. So he simply lay there, thinking, waiting, wondering, and eventually, feeling and movement returned. He stirred sluggishly, his body weak and numb, and it was a few minutes before he was able to struggle up into a sitting position, only to realize that something was different about the way he moved.

He felt lighter, freer. It was much easier to move, even if he did feel lethargic and dazed. Then he realized that the cause of that was probably due to the fact that he was missing several layers of outer covering, the stuff that he somehow knew to be called clothing.

There was one other thing different touching his skin, though. A shaking hand rose to his neck, feeling the unfamiliar and uncomfortable object strapped around his throat. His mind flickered for several moments, a single word bubbling to the surface of an otherwise dark, churning void.

_Collar_.

For some reason, the word made him uneasy. Almost like seeing the creatures his brain called Normal. Yet he couldn't quite figure out why such a small object would give him the same feeling as those much larger and more intimidating creatures. It frustrated him, but as it certainly was not harming him right now, the frustration shortly fell from his attention. He cast his lopsided gaze around at his surroundings, attempting to find something else on which he could focus his shattered thoughts.

The place he was in was mostly dark but for a dim light set into the ceiling that allowed for vague shapes and figures to take form if he stared long enough. He was in an enclosed area. _Cage_. Yes, that was right. It was a cage, a contraption to keep a creature from not going anywhere. It was a small cage. Without trying, he knew that he would not be able to stretch out to his full height no matter which way he positioned himself. The ceiling was too low and the walls were too near. It was like being in a box. He reached out a heavy hand to touch the metal surrounding him, his fingers grasping hold of something thin and strong and close together. On closer inspection, he could see that there was what looked like crisscrossing small holes of thin wire wound tightly in between the metal bars. Hesitantly, he allowed a cautious tongue to creep towards the strange wall, slithering its way up to test the holes and attempting to push out the nearest, but the tongue barely made it an inch before it became stuck and he was forced to withdraw it or end up losing it.

So, his one primary advantage would be of no use here.

More anxious now than before, he glanced around, feeling his way through what he could not see. But it was no use. There was no exit. Everywhere he tried he merely found more bars and more wire. He was trapped.

Movement next to him immediately caught his attention. Warily, he glanced around, realizing that other identical cages surrounded his cage. It looked as if there were only a few that were occupied besides his, including the cage directly next to him where the movement originated. As he watched, the dark form within stirred from its forced sleep, cautiously stumbling into a crouching position that the Smoker found unsettlingly familiar to Others he had seen on the streets. The dangerous ones who moved so fast and smooth that it sent a shiver of fear through his body. He sniffed the air tentatively. It smelled the same. Only this one looked different. Like the Smoker, it had none of the heavy coverings over its body, but it had a thick heavy collar around its neck. The creature in the cage, for the moment oblivious to its surroundings, attempted to stumble forward, only to run headfirst into its caging. Stunned, it fell back in confusion into a defensive crouch, a sudden low, aggressive growl ripping through the heavy air. Again, it tried to go forward in a different direction this time, only to once again run head on into the same obstacle. Furious now, the creature dropped into a low crouch, its body moving slightly back and forth as it tested its still wakening muscles before it lunged at the bars, clawing and hissing and snarling like nothing else mattered in the world.

The Smoker looked away, his dazed mind disturbed by the scene enough to allow a trickle of words into his consciousness.

_Trapped._

_Why?_

His silent question was answered almost immediately. A large, tall rectangle in one of the far walls opened up suddenly, growing wider and wider until bright, blinding light was pouring into the dank room, only to be almost immediately interrupted by three figures, one very tall, another very short in comparison, and the other somewhat in between, walking hastily into the room. A moment later and the rectangle thinned considerably until it was simply a long, narrow line of vertical white, but one of the figures was holding a smaller version of the light in its hands. The yellow beam sliced through the dimness, scanning the empty and non-empty cages swiftly until it focused on the ones directly before it. The ones holding the silent, frightened Smoker and the raging creature in the cage next to him.

"He's going to injure himself," said a rough, gravelly voice. As soon as his ears heard the words, the Smoker's mind told him that these new creatures were more of the Normal ones who had brought him here, this one in particular a male. Their smell was slightly different, though, and not in a good way. "Guess we better see if our little control system works, eh?"

"Don't put it on for too long," warned another male's voice, this one sharp and smooth. "We don't want to damage these ones too much."

There was a grunt of acknowledgement, and then a moment later, the violent frenzy in the cage next to the Smoker unexpectedly flung away from the bars, screeching and clawing at itself and the collar around its neck in such raw pain and agony that the Smoker withdrew to the other side of his cage as much as possible, watching in horror as the other creature thrashed and screamed within the small confines of its prison.

But just as abruptly as the onslaught had occurred, it suddenly stopped. The tortured creature collapsed into a ball, its bloodied claws clutching at its shuddering body, as if trying to hold all the wounds together, and instead of screams there were now high-pitched whimpers of misery.

One of the figures drew closer until it was a few feet away from the beaten creature's cage. It crouched down in front of it almost lazily, obviously not worried about being attacked. The beam of light remained behind it, shining upon the scene at a distance and making it difficult to see the facial features.

"Well, looks like we'll have to cut those claws of yours, won't we?" murmured the stranger with a gruff voice. The injured creature's whimpers mixed with confused whines.

"Did he damage himself?"

"A little. Won't be too bad, though. We'll just have to patch 'im up a bit when we take'm out."

The beam of light drew nearer suddenly, bouncing up and down as the holder walked. It drew closer and closer to where the Smoker sat, and he tried to make himself as less of a target as he could, drawing up his legs to his torso and pressing back against the wall. He could do nothing to stifle the annoying coughs that suddenly took over him or his own harsh breathing. The beam stopped in front of his cage as the second male crouched down next to the first, peering in at the trapped Infected.

"You're right, Nicole. These ones aren't nearly as badly mutated as the others." The bright light waved across the Smoker's face and he cringed, turning his head away from it and retreating as far back in the small, steel cage as he could. The man chuckled. "This one is especially tame. That's the first time that an Infected hasn't tried to take a bite out of me on sight."

"I suppose it shouldn't be much of a surprise," spoke up a third voice, a softer, gentler one but with an indifferent, almost cold tone. However, the Smoker found that he liked the sound of it, and he chanced a look with his good eye to try to see the source, only to be blinded once again by another passing of the light. "Instead of making him overtly aggressive like the others, the virus simply made him more docile. Just like some rabies cases, where the creatures became more lethargic instead of aggressive, only he still moves fairly well when he wants to, according to the trappers. Not that we have confirmation that the Green Flu is a derivative of rabies."

"Well, either way, he'll be the first one we study then. Maybe we can isolate the part of his strain that's causing that and try to transfer it to the others. Especially this one."

The Smoker risked another look in time to see that the light was now shining into the cage next to him, clearly illuminating the huddled form. Immediately, the whimpers of pain shifted into a warning growl and the creature struggled to all fours, bunching up its muscles underneath it as if ready to pounce again, its bloodstained teeth bared in defiance and anger.

"Either that or we're going to have to use a hefty amount of shock therapy," said the rough voice with a sarcastic laugh that the Smoker did not like at all. "It seems this one at least has a fairly normal tolerance for pain compared to the rest."

"It's the virus that's disrupting their ability to register pain, so it stands to reason that a lower pain tolerance compared to other Infected is just another side effect of the unusual virus strain in these ones. What are the CEDA calling it? Partial Infection?"

"Yeah, PI. Like 'pie,' which is definitely one thing that this damn apocalypse is lacking in." The gruff voice broke into another bought of harsh laughter.

"I would hardly think that this is a subject worth joking about, Connelly," said the female voice quietly, her tone cold enough that despite its softness, it was easily heard by everyone. The laughter faded uncertainly.

"Do these ones have a file?" The other man holding the light had apparently not been paying attention to the conversation happening around him. The Smoker could feel the invisible gaze on him, and he blinked and closed his eyes, turning away into the back wall of his cage in an effort to try to ignore the Normal gathered around him. It didn't help much.

"Yes, surprisingly," said the female briskly. There was a ruffling of paper as she pulled out a folder tucked under her arm and rifled through the papers within. "Only the Smoker so far, however. He had a small problem with joy riding in his youth." She paused. "Fletcher Tracy. Age 23."

At the sound of the word Fletcher, the Smoker's head twitched towards the voices ever so slightly. Something had flared up in the dark confusion of his brain. Something…something familiar. Something vague. A flurry of sounds and a picture. A moment.

_Fletcher? the woman asked. Fletcher, what's wrong? Where's Antoine?_

But just as quickly as it had come, the memory disappeared, leaving the Smoker more confused and frightened than before for a reason he could not quite understand.

"Well, Nikki, looks like we might have found you a boyfriend after all," muttered the gruff voice, albeit rather quietly enough that his words were apparently missed but his two companions.

"Nothing on the Hunter?"

"Nothing yet. Apparently, he's from out of state, and we don't have access to any other police record databases not in our state."

"I see. Very well, then." The man with the light slowly climbed to his feet and the other crouched form swiftly followed. At the movement, the creature in the cage next to the Smoker began to growl again, this time a bit more loudly than before, but he was ignored. "Let's have them moved to the lab then, shall we? Connelly, see to it that arrangements are made, eh?"

The Smoker opened his eyes enough to watch the three figures draw away, back towards the thin rectangle of light. "Sure thing, boss man. I'm sure Pierce will just _love_ this after what happened to that last batch…"

The rectangle widened and then disappeared once again, leaving the room in silence and darkness. Without realizing he had been holding it, the Smoker let out a slow, raspy breath of relief. In the cage next to him, the Hunter's growls had faded and he had settled into a corner, his limbs tucked underneath his body, his face pointed in the direction the Others had gone.

They were gone. Gone.

_Gone, he whispered, and it was as if the weight of the world crashed on his shoulders. Antoine is…gone._


End file.
